


Five Times They're Caught Napping (and One Time They Aren't)

by aserenitatum



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 13:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10361127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aserenitatum/pseuds/aserenitatum
Summary: There’s no denying the fact that Elena likes sleeping. All the extra running she does, coupled with her high metabolism, means she needs at least 8 hours a night to be a polite and functioning member of society. Since joining SHIELD, her sleeping hours have dropped drastically and she's increasingly become a fan of naps.Mack likes naps for the feeling he gets when he wakes up. He’s a firm believer in power naps and whenever he’s feeling overworked or a bit fatigued, he tries to squeeze in a power nap to get him back to full functioning capacity.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just a bit dev by the lack of YoYoMack fics in general, so this here is my contribution. English translations for the few Spanish sentences can be found in the end notes

 

* * *

**Coulson**

* * *

 

Mack and Yo Yo are snapping at each other over comms and at some point it gets so bad that Coulson has to step in.  

“Guys, focus on the mission at hand.” 

Elena’s gruntled voice comes over the comms loud and clear, “I’m not the one constantly trying to stop me from doing my job." 

“I don’t want you to take unnecessary risks!” 

“I don’t need a babysitter." 

“Clearly you do if you’re going to endanger the mission,” Mack snaps and Coulson’s eyes go wide, surprised at his tone.  

Mack isn’t one to react so harshly or lose his temper easily, so something must have gone really sour for him to react that way.  

“Cut it out, you two,” Coulson instructs sharply. The comms go silent so he assumes they’re getting back to work.  

“They’ve been up all night, you know,” May says, startling him. He’s not sure how long she’d been there but she steps into the room and takes a seat next to him.  

“They’re squabbling. I don’t need that in my team.” 

“They haven’t slept all night. They’re cranky,” May explains simply and shrugs a shoulder, face passive. He sighs and realises she’s right.  

“They’ve been up all night,” he repeats and she nods. “I’ll talk to them when they get back,” he confirms and she smiles at him before leaving.  

A couple of hours later the quinjet lands and he’s waiting for it in the hangar. He boards the quinjet and is surprised to find the two occupants fast asleep. He looks around, unsure of whether this is a practical joke or actually happening. He’s suspicious by the fact that they’ve managed to sleep through the landing, before remembering that the quinjet doesn’t land in the same rough way the Zephyr does and for them to actually be asleep, they must be _exhausted_.  

Out of all the seats they could have taken, they’re strapped in right next to one another, Elena’s head resting against Mack’s shoulder and his head resting on her head, both fast asleep.  

He can’t reconcile their behaviour from earlier with the one he’s seeing now, so he stands in front of them and watches them.  

By the time he realises it’s probably creepy to watch them sleep, they start waking up. Mack is first, and he wakes suddenly, eyes blinking open and falling on Coulson standing in front of him with an amused smile on his face and his arms crossed.  

“Yo Yo, wake up,” he whispers to the woman still pressed against his arm. He shakes his shoulder gently and feels her frown against him. “Wake up.” 

“Pinche cabron…” she mumbles in complaint and he almost laughs at her insult.  

“Elena?” Coulson says sharply and her eyes snap open, but her body is slow to sit up and wake up.  

“Hello Coulson,” she says with a toothy grin.  

“Have a nice nap?” 

“Yes.”  

Mack’s cheeks flush with warmth and he avoids Coulson’s gaze, choosing to busy himself with his seatbelt.  

“Él es muy cómodo,” she says with a grin, knowing that both Coulson and Mack understand her.  

Her words make Coulson a little uncomfortable, as if he’s intruding on a moment, until Mack ends the conversation with, “Debrief?” and a gesture to get them off the plane.  

 

* * *

**May**

* * *

 

It’s been a long week and May is _annoyed_. They’ve had to do their own recon, which in itself isn’t a problem. The problem is that she has been at it for almost a week and nothing has happened. She feels like she’s watching a sloth walking, except a sloth would actually be moving whereas her mission is at a complete standstill. Phil knows her well, because the next day, the day she’s ready to start ripping out her hair so she could at least be doing something to cure her boredom, he sends in reinforcements. Mack and Elena are like a walking banter machine and just having them around lightens her mood. Elena’s enhanced skills help, too.  

In the week that follows, she learns an unnecessary amount of robot uprising movie trivia and obscure Latin American art trivia, but at least she’s not bored anymore. When they hit day 20 of nothing happening, Coulson calls off the whole thing and orders them back to base. May is relieved beyond words, but also a little disappointed, mostly because she has just wasted 20 days on _nothing_  but also that she’ll be losing the company of Elena and Mack.  

When she informs them of the new orders, they both try their hardest to not look disappointed, and May has to work hard to suppress a smug grin.  

Phil is an absolute gossip, and he’s already told her about how Mack and Elena seem to be growing closer and closer. It makes her wonder if he sent them to accompany her because he knew she wouldn’t meddle too much and give them enough privacy to maybe finally get things going.  

The quinjet coming out to get them is almost two hours away, and it’s that thought train that leads to her saying, “I’m going out for some air before we leave. Are you two good here?” 

Both nod, avoiding her eyes, and she finally allows a small smirk to pull at her lips as she turns away.  

She’s gone for an hour, and when she comes back, she sneaks in. She wants to do some recon of her own, plus any information she can hold over Phil will be worth it. It’s completely quiet, all the gear is packed up, and Elena and Mack are nowhere to be found. She frowns, hand resting gently on her gun, ready to pull it out of its harness if necessary. A million thoughts run through her head, most of them about how stupid it was to leave them alone for the sake of some interpersonal office gossip.  

She rounds the corner and immediately relaxes, hand dropping away from her gun. She smiles widely at the sight of them, fast asleep. Mack is settled on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table, while Elena is curled into his side, her head on his chest and his arm around her middle, holding her close.  

She leaves them be, checking over all the equipment they have to take with them and making sure it’s all ready to go before sneaking back out of the apartment. She waits a few seconds, standing right outside the door, before loudly opening the front door. She makes as much sound as she possibly can without it bordering on suspicious. When she walks into the living area for the second time in a couple of minutes, the two are wide awake, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Mack looking down at his hands and Elena trying to straighten out her hair.  

“Ready to go?” she asks, and doesn’t try to hide her smirk. 

 

* * *

**Daisy**

* * *

 

Daisy likes being alone sometimes, just her and her laptop, tapping away at any piece of code that she feels like tampering with. Since shacking up with SHIELD, she’s developed this habit where she’ll have her laptop to work at, and be near another screen that she uses to tap into the security cameras on base. She’ll pick anybody on the team and have their security feed up on her screen. Sometimes she’ll even switch between two people. It’s not so much a voyeuristic thing, as it is the best of both worlds. She gets to be alone, but also sort of hang out with a person.  

She knows it’s a bit creepy, made doubly so when Coulson twirls a pen around his mechanical hand and she absentmindedly comments, “Oh, you’re getting better at that,” and he turns to her with a puzzled gaze. She spills the beans to him, and he smiles and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.  

What that means is this: he doesn’t tell her to stop.  

Mack finds out one day when she’s watching him. One minute he's tinkering with his motorcycle, and the next he’s out of frame. She startles a bit when she looks up to find him gone, but doesn’t think much of it, not until she hears from over her shoulder “Why are you watching me?” 

“How did you know?” she asks, doesn’t try to pretend she’s not. She’s been caught. _Might as well figure out what went wrong_. 

“I felt watched.” 

“Were your spidey senses tingling?” Daisy teases with a grin.  

He laughs, and she confides in him. She tells him everything, even how long she’s been doing it for.  

“Well…” he starts, and a small part of her is afraid he’s somehow going to be disappointed or upset. “Feel free to watch me whenever. I’ll let you know if I want some privacy.” 

She lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding, gratitude spreading through her as she turns to him.  

He offers her a hug and then leaves her be. She can see him back at his motorcycle a couple of minutes later, and he turns his head to find the security camera, finding it, looking straight at it, and showing her a thumbs up.  

For the following week, she tends to watch Mack more than others. It removes the tiny cognitive dissonance she didn’t know she had about the whole situation, and actually watching Mack work calms her down.  

One day she logs on, booting up all the security cams to see what everybody is up to before going to Mack.  

May is teaching Jemma some more complicated self-defense moves in the gym, Fitz is doing something involving a lot of wires and a metal box, Coulson is sat on the couch in the kitchen reading over some papers, and Mack is— _oh_.  

Daisy wasn’t even aware that Yo Yo was on base, so she’s surprised to see her. She’s even more surprised to see Mack and Yo Yo napping together on a couch in one of the mostly unused lounge rooms. Yo Yo is leaning against the arm of the couch, legs crossed and body tilted to the back of the couch, arm propping her head up. Mack is spread out over the couch, his head in Yo Yo’s lap. The fingers of her free hand are softly pressed between her thigh and the side of his head. They’re both clearly asleep, and Daisy is suddenly hit with the overwhelming feeling that she’s intruding on a very private moment, so she quickly clicks away from the screen and goes back to watching May and Simmons spar.  

 

* * *

**Fitz**

* * *

 

It's become a habit to unwind in the combined kitchen/break room. Mack figures it's probably because that's the closest couch to where the beer is kept, but he likes the coziness of the team settling down after a mission.  

When he walks into the kitchen, he's certainly expecting to find a few agents mulling around, but what he doesn't expect is to find Elena half sprawled over the couch, fast asleep. He greets some of the other agents, grabbing a beer from the fridge and rounding the table to get a better look at Yo Yo. She's tucked her knees under her body and he figures she must have started off upright because of the weird slouched way she's lying on the couch.  

"How long has she been asleep?" he asks, gruffly, but not too loudly.  

One of the agents looks him in the eye and shrugs. "She was already asleep when we got here half an hour ago." 

"We didn't want to wake her," another agents interjects.  

Mack's eyes crinkle at the corners as he lets his lips pull into a small smirk. He thinks it's hilarious that some of the younger agents are intimidated by her.  

The agents that had been milling about soon clear out and Mack is left alone with a sleeping Elena.  

He wants a seat on the couch. He dislikes sitting in the chairs because they always make him feel _huge_ plus the couch is much more comfortable, so if he can figure out a way to gently shift Elena slightly out of the way, he knows they can comfortably share the couch.  

He manages to wedge a hand under her shoulder and gently lift her up. He watches her carefully, ready for her to wake at any minute, but she keeps on sleeping, simply sighing at the change in position as he slips onto the couch and settles her back down.  

The back of her head is so close to his thigh but he's proud that he's managed to sit on the couch without waking her.  

That is, until his cellphone—the one stored in his jeans pocket a mere inch away from her head—loudly vibrates and she wakes up with a startle.  

She shakes awake and then groans, hand coming up to her neck and rubbing it.  

"You okay?" he asks and she doesn't seem at all surprised to find him there.  

"Yeah I just have a..." She takes a moment to think of the word and it gives him time to marvel at how husky her voice sounds. "Kink? In my neck." 

"You know your bed has a pillow to avoid these situations?" he teases and she turns to him with a grin.  

"You and your rules," she teases right back. "Maybe I just want to take a nap on the couch." 

"And deny others the opportunity of sitting here?" he says, but it's playful, so that she doesn't take it too seriously.  

"You're here, aren't you?" she says and she has a point.  

She pats his thigh, and it's almost dangerous, until she shifts and settles her head on the spot she's just patted.  

"What are you doing?" he asks and he can't help but sound a little panicked.  

"Using you as a pillow," she mumbles, voice already sounding sleepy.  

"Again," he says back, but his hand is already in her hair, fingers stroking through the silky strands.  

"Tu eres comodo." 

He doesn't mind that she's using his body as her personal comforter, it makes him swell with affection for her. He can soon feel her breathing even out as she falls back asleep, and he grabs the remote to find something to watch on tv.  

Fitz comes in 20 minutes later, a long-winded story tumbling from his lips the moment he sees Mack sitting on the couch. He's halfway through the story before he realises Mack hasn't responded in any way, so he rounds the couch and the sight that greets him quickly shuts him up.  

He's not surprised to see Yo Yo asleep— _the way that woman can sleep anywhere, anytime is nothing short of a miracle, really_ —he just doesn't expect her to be asleep while draped over Mack. Or for Mack to also be asleep, for that matter.  

He's not sure what to do at the sight of the two. He considers calling over Jemma but that might come off as voyeuristic and if Jemma doesn't believe him when he tells her, he can always pull up the security footage.  

He considers waking them up but then he realises he'd have to wake up Mack and Yo Yo and he certainly doesn't want to be the one to wake the two, especially because what they’re doing can be considered cuddling.  _It could get very awkward, very quickly._

So Fitz opts to simply take some steps back and retreat from the room as quickly as possible while praying to any deity that might listen to allow him to make a safe exit before one of the pair wakes up.  

 

* * *

**Simmons**

* * *

 

A mission had gone terribly wrong, one that had left Mack, Daisy, Robbie _and_ May bedridden and confined to the medical bay, per Simmons’ strict instructions. May and Mack had been model patients, quietly accepting what Daisy had referred to as their “imprisonment”. Robbie had also gone quietly, but with a strong threat to not bother him too much so as to not bother _the_ _other guy_.  

It's only until Jemma threatens Daisy with actual imprisonment in one of the many containment modules that she goes quiet and agrees to stay in medical until Simmons gives her permission to leave.  

The four of them being confined to the medical bay also means that Coulson and Elena are constantly hovering around, trying to be ‘helpful’ but being quite the opposite, much to Simmons’ annoyance. The whole team being AWOL leads to Fitz joining her in the medical bay and that really is the last straw for Jemma, who finally snaps at the fact that there are way too many people in a space designed for a lot fewer.  

Fitz's gentle and soft coddling makes her kick him out, and the surprised look on his face is almost enough to make Jemma feel guilty for snapping and start to apologise, until Coulson knocks over a tray with some supplies on it and her eyes go dark. Fitz takes one look at her expression and bolts. 

As Jemma turns to the older man with rage in her eyes, Coulson, who had anticipated some sort of negative reaction, is already standing with his hands in the air and a guilty look on his face.  

“Get out,” she manages through clenched teeth.  

“Simmons, I’m s—” 

He doesn’t get to finish his statement as her scowl grows deeper, and she lifts an arm to point to the same door Fitz had just ran through. “Sir. Get. Out.” 

He starts walking towards the door, a bit upset but not wanting to pull rank on Simmons when she has _that look_ on her face. (He’s pretty sure May taught her _that look_ ). 

“If you need help with anything, just—” 

“OUT!” 

He leaves without another word, and the quiet already calms Simmons a bit. She feels the fire of annoyance inside her flicker down and die, so she starts cleaning the supplies Coulson had knocked to the floor. While she’s cleaning, she realises she has one more person to kick out. Even though Elena hasn’t gotten in her way or disturbed her in any way, she still feels that fair is fair and if she kicks out Coulson, she has to kick out Elena.  

She hasn’t seen the woman in a few hours, and is not sure where she is, so she decides to leave her be for the time being and ask her to leave once she actually finds her.  

Simmons starts checking on her patients, finding Robbie reading a book in his bed and smiling at her as she checks his vitals. She swings by Daisy next and finds her tapping away at her laptop. As soon as Simmons sets foot in the room, Daisy is trying to cajole her to _let her out pleeeease_ , but Simmons just glares at Daisy threateningly and looks over her vitals before moving on.  

May’s eyes are closed when she enters her room, so Simmons is quiet until the woman speaks up “Hey Simmons?” 

“Yes?” she asks, while checking over the IV line and looking at the monitor.  

“Did you kick Phil out?” 

That makes Simmons look at May, whose eyes are now opened, but her face is blank. “Yes.” 

“Thank you,” May says with a small smile and closes her eyes again.  

Simmons leaves May’s room with a smile on her face, a smile that softens and completely dissipates any lingering feeling of annoyance she’d been feeling the moment she steps foot into Mack’s room.  

Mack already seems to be too big for the bed, but it’s made even smaller by Elena sharing the bed with him. He’s asleep on his back and Elena is all but sprawled over him, her head tucked into his neck and arm resting lightly over his heart. His head is turned to her, lips resting softly against her head and his arm wound tightly around her to keep her in place and, presumably, to keep her from falling off the small bed.  

Simmons doesn’t have the heart to wake either of them, and quietly goes about her business checking Mack’s lines and vitals, satisfied by the fact that Elena doesn’t seem to be pressing on any of his injuries.  

She finds a blanket from one of the cupboards and throws it over Elena before quietly sneaking out of the room and leaving them to nap together.  

 

* * *

**Mack & Elena**

* * *

There’s no denying the fact that Elena likes sleeping. All the extra running she does, coupled with her high metabolism, means she needs at least 8 hours a night to be a polite and functioning member of society. Since joining SHIELD, her sleeping hours have dropped drastically and after noticing that she’d snapped at Fitz over something way too mundane to snap about, she’s decided to start taking naps to make up for the lost hours. After Coulson stumbles upon a sleeping Yo Yo on three separate occasions, he assigns her a bunk at the base and instructs her to make use of it. 

She tries to, she really does, it’s just that the urge to nap sometimes hits her out of the blue and either she doesn’t feel like moving for fear of the feeling going away or the need to nap is so great she’s not convinced she could make it to her bunk.  

Mack likes naps for the feeling he gets when he wakes up. He’s a firm believer in power naps and whenever he’s feeling overworked or a bit fatigued, he tries to squeeze in a power nap to get him back to full functioning capacity.  

He’s been working with Fitz on new SHIELD tech all day, and his eyes have started going blurry and his shoulders ache. He knows Elena is on base, knows that Simmons is making her run drills and exercises all day, so he shoots her a quick text and goes back to work. He feels his phone buzz with a response a few minutes later, but he doesn’t respond, simply looks over her reply and keeps working.   

Twenty minutes later he’s punching the code to his bunk, quietly pushing the door open. She’s in bed, back turned to him and from her breathing he can tell she’s already fast asleep. He shrugs off his clothes and has a quick shower, changing afterwards into a pair of loose shorts and sliding into bed with her.  

He wraps an arm around her waist to pull her a bit closer and her eyes flutter slightly, but she doesn’t wake, only shifts a bit to nestle into him more comfortably. Her steady breathing calms him and soon enough he’s fast asleep.  

She wakes up to a warm, heavy arm slung around her middle, anchoring her to him closely. His breathing is even and she doesn’t want to wake him just yet, so she quietly keeps her breathing even and revels in the feeling of sharing a bed with him. He has a calm energy, one that always soothes her, soothes the hum she often feels buzzing just beneath her skin. He’s calm and he’s steady and for all the teasing and prodding at him, she’s grateful to have him in her life, grateful to God for bringing her someone who can be a rock for her, something for her to slingshot _back to_.  

She’s so deeply caught in her feelings that she fails to notice his fingers twitch against her hip.  

“Hey you,” he says gruffly, voice muffled a bit by her hair. She shifts in his embrace, slips and slides until she’s flat on her back, staring up at him.  

“Mack,” she whispers softly, tenderly. She reaches up, fingers trailing over the side of his face, pad of her thumb running over his lower lip. He smiles, but not before reaching up and softly grasping her hand in his, pressing a quick kiss to her palm.  

“Sleep well?”  

His gaze is  _cariñoso_ , she doesn’t know how else to describe it, and seeing her emotions mirrored in his eyes is enough to send a thrill of emotion down her spine.  

“Never better. You?” It doesn’t feel like they’re talking about their nap, his fingers tracing delicate patterns on the skin of her outer thigh.  

“Eres una almohada cómodo,” he says and it elicits an easy laugh from her, his words mirroring words she’s said many times before to him.  

“I am glad I could be of service,” she teases him back, but his eyes go serious, fingers on her skin stilling.  

“Te amo, Elena,” he says, voice low but clear, and she’s a bit surprised to hear it. “I Google Translated it, just to be sure I got it right,” he says, his voice joking but his eyes are serious, and they’re watching her closely and carefully.  

It’s only a few seconds later, but that’s all the time she needs to process his words, before she smiles widely. He marvels at that smile; she could light up a room with that smile. Her smile is genuine, wide and slightly giddy, and he can’t help but feel a little proud that he can make her smile like that.  

“I love you too, Mack." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> pinche cabron = fucking asshole  
> él es muy cómodo = he is very comfortable  
> tu eres comodo = you are comfortable  
> cariñoso = affectionate/adoring  
> eres una almohada cómodo = you're a comfy pillow  
> te amo = I love you


End file.
